The United States’ total debt has exceeded $40 trillion for the first time, raising concerns that government spending is outstripping revenue and facing a fiscal crisis.
The debt was $19.95 trillion in January 2017, when President Donald Trump first took office, and has doubled since then, according to Treasury Department data shared Wednesday.
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About one-third of this increase occurred in the two years following the outbreak of COVID-19, which was declared a pandemic in March 2020. Both the governments of President Trump and his successor, President Joe Biden, borrowed heavily to respond to the pandemic.
Since Trump took office for the second time in January 2025, the U.S. debt burden has increased by $3.8 trillion, contributing to the total debt increase of the previous two terms of president to $11.6 trillion.
The $8.4 trillion increase during Biden’s term comes on the back of big spending not just on pandemic recovery spending, but also on infrastructure investment, clean energy subsidies and other priorities favored by Democrats.
Margaret Spellings, CEO of the bipartisan policy center, a centrist think tank, said last week that as the $40 trillion threshold approaches, “federal programs are spending far more than the government receives, and all of the most important items in the federal budget are running on autopilot.”
“Federal debt already raises the cost of living, inhibits other spending and investment, and threatens our economy and the long-term prosperity of Americans.”
The $40 trillion figure equates to approximately $117,000 in debt per person and $297,000 per household in the United States. That’s roughly equivalent to the economies of China, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and India combined, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
pandemic spending
The U.S. Treasury Department reported last week that the monthly deficit in July was $432 billion, the fourth-highest in U.S. history, as the Trump administration refunded tariffs that were reversed by the court system.
These refunds made customs receipts negative for the third consecutive month, and spending on Social Security and Medicare benefits for the elderly continued to rise.
The deficit for the first 10 months of fiscal 2026 has already exceeded the total deficit for the entire fiscal year 2025, with only two months left in the current fiscal year.
Mr. Trump has defended big spending for two terms, largely ignoring the shrinking number of fiscal hawks in the Republican Party.
The bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that Trump and Biden’s policy choices have increased the federal debt by more than it would have accumulated under existing spending laws when each took office.
For example, President Trump’s landmark second-term legislative package, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, would add an additional $4.7 trillion to the debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan bookkeeper for Congress.
But Trump is betting his second term as president on cutting costs. At the beginning of his most recent term, he imposed federal workforce reductions on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a non-governmental agency.
But many of his spending cuts are targeted at so-called “discretionary” programs, the smallest portion of the federal budget.
The United States spends about $7 trillion a year, and 60% of its budget goes to so-called “mandatory” programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans care payments, and these programs generally increase in line with the cost of living.
Another $1.1 trillion pays interest on U.S. borrowings, a cost that will rise as the debt pile grows and interest rates rise. In the fiscal year 2025 budget, debt service costs exceed Department of Defense funding for the first time.
In the first 10 months of this fiscal year, interest costs exceeded Medicare health spending, making it the second-largest item in the federal budget after Social Security.
The United States is increasing spending to cover the retirement and health care costs of baby boomers, straining the trust funds that support Social Security and Medicare, even as payroll and income tax revenues fail to cover federal costs.
